FAMOUS CAKE-MAKERS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 169, 12 April 1930, Page 23

FAMOUS CAKE-MAKERS

A change in control has taken place in the firm of Gunter and Co., Ltd., the well-known caterers, whose headquarters are in Berkeley Square, London. Gunter’s has existed for over 600 years, and the fame of its wedding cakes is world wide. The Royal Family have been among its customers; the firm made Queen Victoria’s, wedding cake, and one for the silver wedding of King Edward and Queen Alexandra. It sent a wedding cake also to St. Petersburg when the Tsar and Tsarina were married; the exKaiser often ordered from it, ds did the late King of the Belgians. A history of the social life of London in the past century might almost be compiled from the firm’s leather-bound ledgers. Records of “routs” of later Georgian days, State balls and garden partied of Queen Victoria’s reign, the hospitality of Lambeth and Fulham Palaces, and Of the great city companies are to be found there, as well as those of fashionable weddings, receptions, "stately banquets, and tenantry festivities. There are the names- of Sir Colin Campbell, of Indian Mutiny fame; of Sir Humphry Davy, the scientist; Rogers, the poet; Haydn, and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. The opulent banquets of the Earl of Beaconsfield and orders for Lord Randolph Churchill and the Earl of Balfour are also among some of the entries. There is some little obscurity as to the origin of the firm, the earliest books having been lost. The present firm has an invoice of November 6, 1786.